Read This

This novel was not an actual recommendation.  Baby Sister mentioned it during a phone conversation about another topic.  I wrote down the title as I was trolling for new authors at the time.  And I liked the cover.  I'm old.  Trust me, the cover matters!

When Library Guy brought my last sack of books I shuffled this one to the bottom.  It was heavier than expected; so I didn't want it to be one I lugged to the laundry room.  My laundry is enough of a load. Yikes!  Puns this early in the day hurt my head.  And three of my reserved books were authors I love and they, of course, ranked higher on my list.

Well, I consumed this book in three marathon readings.  Broken only to visit my new grandson and renew prescriptions.  Yummy!  I will say I figured out some of the "punchlines" but I was thrilled when the plot twisted in ways I had not anticipated.  A wholehearted recommendation from yours truly.  Those of you who can read, understand, and spell words of more than two syllables, and I realize not all of you have those abilities, should hunt down a copy of this book.

 I am so sorry the author is dead.

Expanding My Cultural Horizons

I think I was a Finn in another life.  Finnish?  Finnlander?  Finnlandian?  I mean no disrespect.

Blog trolling and I often find myself in a sea of grotesquely long words and absolutely stunning photographs.  I am drawn to the bright, no nonsense, in your face colors of the clothing and interiors pictured on these blogs.  I'll get to that in a minute.

But here's a tip:  Don't bother with the google translator widget.  It takes days to figure out how to install the damn thing and then this is an example of what you get as translation:

Playing in the park got wet today and it's pretty litimäräksi pikkunen maple had dropped almost all the bright yellow leaves. Synkästä säästä huolimatta oli hyvä tunnelma. Gloomy weather, the atmosphere was good.

What?  I give.  Anyway the photos on this particular blog are so special I decided to fore go trying to grasp any context.  The blogger does reuse pictures very often; and so I skip around a lot.  What I love:


The clothing.  Particularly the kids' stuff.  Hand knitted, bulky sweaters and scarves.  Big, big buttons.  The yarns, from what I can determine, look REAL.  No acrylic blends.  These are seriously warm garments.  It's Finland!





The colors.  The winters there last forever, right?  So it makes sense that homes are filled with saturated color.  Cups, carpets, cutting boards, slip covers, bulletin boards, plates, baskets.  On and on.  All bright.  White, WHITE walls and cabinets.  And NOTHING CLASHES!  An orange sideboard.  A green step stool.  No muted earth tones here. I adore it!

This particular blogger posts all kinds of scary, threatening warnings about reposting her stuff.  I've submitted "requests", but the language difference hinders the process.  I'm choosing to be daring.